Fangirls: Comic-Con no longer a boy's club

Superhero comics, science fiction movies, action figures: Once upon a time, these were for boys only -- and the largest boy's club for such fans was Comic-Con International in San Diego.

"I remember my very first Comic-Con being a very white-centric, male show," said Jonah Weiland, owner and publisher of ComicBookResources.com, who attended his first Comic-Con in 1991.

But all that is morphing as more and more women are planning to descend on San Diego this weekend for the 44th annual Comic-Con International.

About 40 percent of last year's attendees were women -- or 52,000 out of the 130,000 fans, according to Comic-Con International spokesman Robert Sayler. The figures reflects the rise of fangirls in the fandoms of comics, science fiction, fantasy and all the other forms of pop culture celebrated at the convention.

"We think that a lot of that (change) may have had to do with Japanese anime and manga," which traditionally does more to appeal to female readers, said David Glanzer, director of Comic-Con International.

Melissa D. Aaron, a professor of English and Foreign Languages at Cal Poly Pomona, credits Harry Potter for the public emergence of women into the geek mainstream.

"Harry Potter is very obviously a female fandom, but it crosses all groups and genders," she said.

Aaron teaches an annual class on Harry Potter at the university in which she said women make up two-thirds of each class.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer -- who first appeared on the cover of Entertainment Weekly in 1999, six years before the first Twilight book was published -- and her spiritual descendent Katniss Everdeen of "The Hunger Games" have helped cement female-friendly pop culture in the mainstream consciousness.

"I can't walk outside without seeing someone's hair tinted pastel. That's like the hair colors that are popular in 'The Hunger Games' in the Capitol," Aaron said. "Helen Mirren dyed her pink, good lord."

But the big coming out ceremony for female fandom was arguably the 2005 release of Stephenie Meyer's "Twilight" novel, its sequels and the movies that became a cultural juggernaut. While there are some male fans of the series, unlike traditional pop culture superheroes, the lead characters in the "Twilight" series are squarely aimed at women, Polo said.

"You put Edward Cullen and Superman next to each other, or Jacob and Batman, you can see how differently they're portrayed," Polo said.

The series was also incredibly divisive in fandom and was perhaps the first sign of a backlash against female fans.

"There's a certain amount of the flak that the Twilight fandom gets because it's targeted at women and made by women," Polo said.

"There are a lot of things in the nerd community that have problematic aspects to them or fall apart under scrutiny, but they are not vilified for it," like Twilight often is, Polo added.

For instance, while vampire fans are boxed into the nerd community, being a fan of the popular film "Underworld," which focuses on the battle between vampires and werewolves, doesn't necessarily mean you're a nerd, Polo said.

The push-back against women in fandom has manifested in recent years with accusation that some female fans are, in fact, "fake geek girls."

"The idea of the 'fake geek girl' started (with a) focus on cosplayers," Polo said. "It can be 'Oh, she must only be dressing up like that because it's a skimpy costume, and she wants to get male attention.'"

Cosplayers dress up as their favorite characters from comics, video games and other media. Those sometimes-skimpy costumes, Polo noted, tend to be how the characters dress in their series.

"When a guy walks into a comic book shop, no one questions it," said Ginny McQueen, a professional cosplayer from Los Angeles. "Sometimes, I feel like I have to pull out my credentials, like 'Here's a list of the comics I own.' But that never happens with a guy."

The relative newness of many female fans is also used against them, Polo said.

"A lot of the 'fake geek girl' pressure is leveled against women who are just getting into the fandom," Polo said, "'Oh, it's somebody who just likes 'Scott Pilgrim' or just likes 'The Avengers,' and not whatever they feel is the actual hallmark of being a member of that community. It's very much a community policing thing."

Whatever the boys think, fangirls are now so many in number that they have a girl's club all of their own: the GeekGirlCon convention, each October in Seattle.